News

Ocean stakeholders take stock, look ahead at marine protected areas

By JESSICA SHUGART Herald Correspondent

Posted:
02/27/2013 07:32:24 PM PST

Updated:
02/28/2013 09:12:33 AM PST

Efforts to protect local waters from the destruction of overfishing, pollution and climate change are paying off, but there is always room for improvement, according to scientists monitoring the Central Coast's marine protected areas.

Established six years ago, the Central Coast's MPA program — a patchwork of coastal protected areas from Pigeon Point to Point Conception — was the first in the state.

Now, at the "State of the California Central Coast" meeting in Monterey, hundreds of resource managers, scientists and policymakers are coming together to assess how well the program has worked and to make plans for changes in the future. The conference, which started Wednesday and runs through Friday, is open to the public.

Michael Sutton, president of the California Fish and Game Commission, kicked off Wednesday's events by addressing a packed conference room at the Monterey Marriott.

"No matter what you think of MPAs, no matter what side you're on in the debate over whether or not to create them, we all want the answers to the same fundamental questions: Are these places working? And if they're not, what do we need to do to make them work better?" he said.

The Central Coast MPA program consists of 29 protected areas, ranging from tide pools on the shorelines to deep oceanic canyons miles off the coast. Point Lobos, Natural Bridges and Elkhorn Slough are some of the protected areas on the shore, and deep ocean sites, in the outer reaches of Monterey Bay, include Portuguese Ledge and Soquel Canyon.

Advertisement

Overall, the MPAs along the Central Coast cover 207 square miles, encompassing roughly 18 percent of the region's state waters that extend three miles from the shoreline.

The formation of MPAs was opposed by much of the fishing industry, as some of the areas are designated "no take" zones. Of the Central Coast MPAs in effect today, 80.5 square miles are off limits to fishing, but the rest offer some combination of recreational and fishing activities.

Shying away from management of declining coastal ecosystems "is a prescription in the marine environment for a serial killing of species by species until we have nothing left," said Santa Cruz County Treasurer Fred Keeley.

Keeley, who was introduced as the "Godfather of MPAs" because of his longstanding support of the program, stressed the importance of paying as much attention to the environment in the ocean as we do for the land.

"We always get the terrestrial side first. We live in it, we see it, and it's much easier to measure," he said. "When you look out at the ocean, unless you are a marine scientist and you literally dive in, it (always) looks the same."

To get an accurate assessment of the state of the Central Coast's protected areas, marine biologists did literally dive in. Since the designation of the MPAs in 2007, professional and volunteer citizen scientists have been documenting changes in the ecosystems, assessing everything from algae to corals to fish targeted by fisheries.

Given the sheer size of the area of the MPAs, this monitoring is no small task.

To increase the scope of the monitoring efforts, Jan Friewald, of Reef Check, trained 150 scuba divers as citizen scientists. On their dives, the volunteers watch out for 74 different species deemed indicators of ecosystem health. For the most part, the data collected by these newly trained amateurs matched well with data collected by marine biologists.

Deepwater regions ranging from 300 to 1200 feet deep — where more mature fish often migrate after enjoying a childhood among the shallower kelp forests — were monitored by manned submersibles in surveys led by Rick Starr of Moss Landing Marine Labs and Mary Yoklavich of NOAA. Unmanned ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) equipped with cameras were put to use by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in taking stock of the deeper ocean inhabitants.

While the scientists did find variation between species and regions, the overall trend of ecosystem recovery in response to MPAs has been a positive one. Between 2007 and 2011, a range of species, including cabezon, lingcod and black rockfish, increased in relative abundance inside of the MPAs as compared to unprotected areas. Black abalone and owl limpets increased in size inside the MPAs as well, suggesting a recovery from overfishing.

Elizabeth Whiteman, director of the MPA Monitoring Enterprise program in the California Ocean Science Trust, is optimistic that these early signs of progress hint at larger gains. She uses Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, which has been in place for more than 30 years, as an example of good things to come for the more recently added MPAs.

"What we see at Point Lobos is more fish and bigger fish," Whiteman said. "So these early changes that we're seeing in the other MPAs are correlated with what you might see in the future."

Whiteman also points to socioeconomic changes brought on by MPAs.

"What we've seen in the last five years are fluctuations in commercial and recreational fishing industries, but also a resilience and an adaptation," Whiteman said. She said a shift to non-consumptive activities, like whale-watching tours within MPAs, demonstrates the adaptability of industry.

By the end of this week's symposium, scientists, policymakers and resource managers hope to emerge with a clearer sense of how the MPA program has succeeded — and with ideas about how to make it more effective.

"The problem is, not everybody shares the same reality," said Sonke Mastrup, executive director of the California Fish and Game Commission. "The good news is that science builds the door to reality. It creates a framework with which you can start finding a common reality."